Review of status of northern, or pinto, abalone, Haliotis kamtschatkana, in Canada / G.S. Jamieson.: Fs70-1/1999-190E-PDF

Jamieson (1989) reviewed the status of northern, or pinto, abalone in British Columbia, Canada, but while the paper was accepted and reviewed by COSEWIC in April, 1988, no status could be assigned, as at that time COSEWIC had no mandate for invertebrates. COSEWIC's mandate changed in 1994, however, and COSEWIC is now able to assign status to molluscs. Here, the current status of this species is reviewed in relation to threats, and changes in abundance and fisheries management which have occured since Jamieson's (1989) earlier report are described. It should be noted that concern about the status of the northern abalone has been expressed by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) since the mid 1980's. Declining indices of abundance resulted in the then unprecedented step of totally closing the northern abalone fishery in 1990. Subsequent surveys, even in the absence of legal fishing, show continued decline in abundance indices. The causes of this continued decline in indexed abundance are not known and can only be speculated on at this time, so evaluation of overall risk of northern abalone disappearance from Canada is impossible to determine except in a general sense.

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